About
The Marine Corps War Memorial stands as a symbol of a grateful nation's esteem for the honored dead of the United States Marine Corps. Although the statue depicts one of the most famous incidents of World War II, the Memorial is dedicated to all Marines who have given their lives in the defense of the United States since 1775. Shortly after Associated Press news photographer Joe Rosenthal's inspiring action picture of the Marines raising the second flag on Mount Suribachi was released, Sculptor Felix W. de Weldon, then on duty with the Navy, constructed a scale model and then a life-size model inspired by the scene.
The three survivors of the flag raising, Rene A. Gagnon, Ira Hayes, and John Bradley posed for Mr. de Weldon, who modeled their faces in clay. All available pictures and physical statistics of the three Marines who gave their lives were assembled and used in the modeling of their faces. The figures were originally molded in the nude so that the strain of muscles would be prominently shown after clothing was modeled on the struggling figures.
Steel framework, roughly duplicating the bone structure of the human body, was assembled to support the huge figures under construction. Once the statue was completed in plaster it was carefully disassembled into 108 pieces and trucked to the Bedi-Rassy Art Foundry, Brooklyn, New York for casting in bronze. The casting process, which required the work of experienced artisans, took nearly three years.
After the parts had been cast, cleaned, finished, and chased, they were reassembled into approximately a dozen pieces and brought back to Washington by a three-truck convoy. Erection of the Memorial on the edge of Arlington Cemetery near the Virginia's approaches to Memorial Bridge was begun in September of 1954. It was officially dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on November 10, 1954.